I'll start this story with a big, hairy spider ...
... one of the biggest species in this area where I live ... Istra peninsula, northern Adriatic, that is ...
... you can see him with the pray ... a cockchafer beetle enveloped in silk.
This spider builds pretty large webs, often between the trees, in the middle of narrow pats through the forest ...
... and a lot of insects, big and small, can be found caught here...
... but the most fascinating things on this cobweb ... are these ...
From a distance, they look like some seeds or insects bodyparts, remainings of a spider meal ... but when the big spider goes up on the three branches to rest hidden in the foliage ...
... they come alive ...
... and start to move ...
... they crawl around the web ...
... directed to the remains of the big spider's meal...
... a great, rich feeding ground.
The abdomen of this spiders is shiny, and so, from different angles, depending on the way the light is reflected, they look very different.
This ...
... this ...
...and this ... are actually the same spider... I swear.
For now, I showed you only the females ... and now ...
... this is the male...
... looks like a pretty different creature.
I saw 4 female and one male ...
... wandering around the large web ...
... from some angles, these spiders looked like lovely little jewels.
And now, before continuing this story ( there will be more surprises and spider attractions, I promise) I need to do a little digression. In one old post of the SPRINGTIME ADVENTURES series, I covered shortly a very similar orange colored species. It was the first time I encountered this type of spiders and became aware of their existence on larger webs of bigger spiders. I'll put a link to that post here because could be interesting to compare them.
https://steemit.com/photography/@borjan/springtime-adventures-episode-13-an-interesting-coexistence
And now, with this out of the way, let's continue.
As I was saying before I interrupted myself :) the spiders were feeding...
... but then a male and a female got close to each other ...
... and started the mating ...
... it was a gracile hanging ballet that I saw for the first time in my life.
... it lasted a few minutes ...
... and then the spiders returned to feeding ...
... and running around acrobatically ...
... I followed them in those activities ...
... for a while ... an then ...
... another mating happened...
This time I photographed it with the sky as a background ...
... and the spiders became dancing silhouettes ...
... it lasted a bit longer this time ...
...and then was time for another round of feeding ...
... running around ...
... and crawling ...
... and then ...
... another mating ...
... and with that third one ...
... and with a few more shots ...
... of these minuscule wanders ...
... oh :) I almost forgot to mention ...
... sometimes they camouflage themselves in this position ...
... that make them look like ...
... I don't know like what exactly ... something that is not a spider I guess ...
And now :)
This is really coming to an end ...
Hope you don't mind this much spider talk ... and don't have any serious arachnophobia issues ...
... have a good day ...
... or night ...
... wherever on the planet you are ...
As always in these posts on Steemit ... all the photographs and GIFs ... are my work.
THE END :) That's it for today.
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Thank you :)
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hahaha... wow... that was entertaining and educative at the same time... awesome stuff!
I never knew there are spiders living in bigger spiders' webs. And what a life they life, eat, bang, eat, bang, eat, sleep... and the big fellow is basically just providing for them...
Great Post!
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Thanks : ) I was also surprised by these two spider species cohabitation. Hehe, It fascinated me so much that I spent hours and hours day after day under this web, taking a look every 10 minutes or so, waiting to see what these spiders are doing in their everyday life. It was kind of reality show with spiders and like all reality shows had a lot of boring moments that were like an empty eternity :D Fortunately, I had always something to read with me, so the time was flying.
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Thank you! :)
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These spideys are going at it like rabbits!
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:D good observation
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I don't like spiders but impressive photo. 😊 I apologize for not upvoting but my vp is currently on the beach recharging the batteries after some hectic upvoting shenanigans. 🙄 😊
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Hehe :) thank you ... yes, spiders are shaped a bit creepy and I understand the dislike ... I had problems with them before, no chance that I would let a spider crawl on me back then ... I had mild arachnophobia ... but then through photography, through an up-close look at them and through the discovery of various very interesting and pretty complex behaviors ... I began to like them, now I'm ok with spiders, like with butterflies let's say :)
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Very interesting post and nice photos!
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Thank you :D Glad you like this little documentary thing.
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These do look like little jewels. I once found a silver spider here that looks like a tiny ball bearing floating in the web.
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Beautiful, shiny spider in combination with silk of the web is a surreal little thing ... spiders are great, so many colors, shapes, webs, and hunting strategies, and many interesting behavioral surprises ... I really like spiders a lot.
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Me too i have two tarantulas as pets right now. A cobalt blue and a chilean rose hair.
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Maybe :) one day ... will be a cool post with these pets. I will surely like to see them.
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I'll tag you in it.
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Thanks :) do it.
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Hey, Borjan. I enjoyed your spider story.
Quick question though. With all that activity, how is it that the big spider didn't know? I used to think a spider was very sensitive to its web, so much that a little nodge would be noticed.
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It seems that for most of the time during the day the big one didn't care about the things on the web, he was up on the branch hidden between the leaves and I saw him actively on the web only in the morning and in the evening, that fly on the photograph was also caught in the midday and he didn't come ... but even when he was active and eating, the small spiders were around at some distance and he was not aggressive towards them.
On this photograph of bad quality made with the flash at dawn, not much light were in the woods, you can see, not very clear but you can :), the small spider ...
This is what I saw ... I don't know the scientific facts behind this story and these behaviors
This is just what I saw while visiting and photographing the web
And :) thanks for the comment, this was a good question.
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